Crime Scenes: Detective Narratives in European Culture Since 1945Anne Mullen, Emer O'Beirne Rodopi, 2000 - 325 pages The essays in this collection are based on papers given at a conference on detective fiction in European culture, held at the University of Exeter in September 1997. The range of topics covered is designed to show not only the presence and variety of narratives of detection across different European countries and their different media (although there is a predictable emphasis on the novel). It also illustrates the fertility of the genre, its openness to a spectrum of readings with different emphases, formal as well as thematic. Approaches to detective fiction have often tended to confine them-selves to 'symptomatic' interpretation, where details of the fictional world represented are used to diagnose a specific set of social preoccupations and priorities operative at the time of writing. Such approaches can yield valuable insights. Nonetheless there is a risk of limiting the value of the genre as a whole solely to its role as a mirror held up to society. In this perspective, issues of structure and style are sidelined, or, if addressed, are praised to the extent that they approach invisibility -- concision, spareness, realism are the qualities singled out for praise. The genre also gives much scope for formal innovation -- and indeed has often attracted already established 'mainstream' writers and filmmakers for just this reason. The eclectic diversity of the detective narratives considered in this volume reveal the malleability of the traditional constraints of the genre. The essays bear rich testimony to the value of considering the interplay of thematic and structural issues, even in the most apparently unselfconscious and popular (or populist) forms of narrative. The patterns of reassurance, the triumph of intellect and the ordered, rational world 'of old' are now challenged by the need to foreground the problems, ambiguities and uncertainties of the self and of society. The plurality of meanings and the antithetical imperatives explored in these detective narratives confirm that the most recent forms of the genre are not mere palimpsests of their 'golden age' precursors. The subversion of traditional expectations and the implementation of diverse stylistic devices take the genre beyond mere homage and pastiche. The role of the reader/spectator and critic in conferring meaning is a crucial one. |
Table des matières
3 | |
Primal Trauma in the Films of Dario Argento | 25 |
Eliminating the Detective BoileauNarcejac | 37 |
Parodying the polar RobbeGrillet and | 59 |
Someone Elses Southerner Opposed Essences in | 75 |
75 | 93 |
The Figure of the Detective in the Novels of Antonio | 100 |
Christian Ritual and Creed in Åke | 113 |
From Traffic to Jamming Cars Music and | 183 |
The Perfect Crime? Paternal Perpetrators in Dacia | 207 |
Investigating Fictions of | 219 |
The roman noir and the Reconstruction of | 228 |
As Befits Men The Creation of Masculinity in the | 241 |
Feminism and the Crisis of Masculinity in | 254 |
Didier Daeninckx and Michel de Certeau A | 269 |
Tracking down the Past The Detective as Historian | 281 |
Between Detachment and Desire Léo Malets French | 125 |
Pierre Magnan Crime and Complicity in la France | 137 |
Function and Meaning of the fait divers in French | 149 |
Behind the Canvas The Role of Paintings in | 160 |
Death by Jigsaw La Vie mode demploi by 171 | 171 |
Detectives in Transition From Plinio to Carvalho | 291 |
Montalbans Carvalho Series as Social | 300 |
Montalbáns Carvalho Spanish Society Identity | 312 |
Notes on Contributors | 320 |
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Expressions et termes fréquents
Antonio Tabucchi Barcelona Benoit Boileau-Narcejac Burma Carvalho series Certeau characters classical detective Clouzot clues contemporary crime fiction crime novels Crimewatch UK criminal critical cultural Daeninckx death detective fiction detective novel detective story detective's Diaboliques Didier Daeninckx Edwardson's episode essays example fact fait divers female feminist film Flavières France French Gallimard Geeraerts Geeraerts's gender genre giallo hard-boiled Hitchcock identity investigation Italian Jef Geeraerts jigsaw killed killer Les Diaboliques literary London Madeleine mafia Manuel Vázquez Montalbán masculinity memory mise en abyme Modiano's moral murder mystery narrative narrator nouveau roman painting Paris parody past Patrick Modiano Perec plot police political Polizeiruf 110 popular postmodern postwar present protagonists reader reality references relationship reveals Robbe-Grillet role roman noir roman policier scene Sciascia's sense sexual social society Spain Spanish Spino structure Sueurs froides Tabucchi television theme tion tive traditional Velge Vertigo victim violence women writers